Food For Thought
by LoveHP
Summary: Snape observes something peculiar about Potter and strikes. Snape and Harry. Child abuse, neglect. Please R/R


**I Don't own HP.**

**AN: I just love the hate between Harry and Snape.**

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**Food For Thought.**

First Year

It was the start of the new term feast at Hogwarts. The buzz of students clad in black sat retelling their summer holidays, inhaling food without graceful movement.

Yet Snape had not touched his plate. His eyes trained on the boy seating starry-eyed and not-so-sure-of-himself at Gryffindor table. A boy too skinny and too small for his age, with that same appearance and insufferable hair he had inherited from his father. Snape vaguely wondered why the Sorting Hat took so long to sort the boy, but that's history now.

He scowled, watching the boy, ignoring Quirrel's nonchalant stutter about his summer in Albania. Almost too calm, he mused, deep in his mind. But his concern was on a more pressing issue: Harry Potter.

Arrogant, insolent and bold… _yes_, Snape saw that all in front of him, wrapped up in pristine Hogwarts robes. Just one look at the boy and he knew Potter would make his life miserable, but he was determined to make his worse.

It was then Snape noticed something peculiar. Potter was sneakily removing a couple of meat pies from the table and a bread roll, placing them on his lap, where he discreetly hid them away in his robes.

_Interesting…_ Snape realised his eyebrows were sky-high. But he relaxed them quickly, and jolted when Minerva started speaking with him.

Dumbledore made his almost embarrassing start of year speech. The students sung that dreaded Hogwarts song and off to bed the headmaster commands. The sea of students stood up, bustling about, waving friends goodnight, greeting others, but Snape's eyes were still on one boy, as he rushes off with his newfound friends.

For the next few days he observes the boy doing the same thing every evening: pocketing food.

If it wasn't for the boy's impertinence during his first Potions class, Snape might have been just a touch concerned, but he flicked it away like a bothering fly. _Sorry Lily,_ he thought_, but your son is James Potter all over again. _

Eventually Potter stopped hiding food that year; perhaps he realised he wasn't going to starve at Hogwarts.

Second Year

The waif does it again.

_Pathetic,_ Snape thought, as he watched the boy slip a sandwich into his pocket, whilst sitting in his dungeons.

Snape had been livid at the thought of Weasley and Potter destroying the valuable Whomping Willow with their flying car to care that the boy looked thinner, and slightly unhealthier than first year, despite having spent weeks at the Weasleys. Then there was fact that the boys were saved from expulsion, and this made Snape want to wring Potter's skinny neck, instead of question his eccentricities.

Third year and fourth year he does the same, continuing for a week or two, but in fifth year, he does it thrice, though never again.

Sixth Year

Potter doesn't do it.

That same routine from years past has escaped him this year. He doesn't pocket the food, and for a moment Snape wondered, hoped, the boy had grown wiser.

Curious, Snape cornered him a few days into the new term. He followed the boy after dinner, who walked silently, without his friends in sight. His head bowed, and Snape pondered what the boy was thinking about.

"Potter…"

The corridor was quiet and there was a slight echo in his voice.

The boy froze in the deserted corridor, and turns slowly, shoulders stiffening.

He was taller, and looked almost the same as his father, yet more handsome, more like Lily. He was growing up charming and dark… though forever mediocre. But his eyes gave the boy a more ethereal quality Snape remembered about Lily.

_No wonder the girls are fawning over him… that and his celebrity, and he would've given Black a run for his money,_ he nauseating thought.

But there was something in his eyes that disturbed Snape; it was though there was a part of Potter missing since the death of his godfather and Diggory. He looks pinched, unhealthy as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. But why should Snape care, as long as he survived the war?

"Yes," he answered curtly, then adds with a hiss, "_sir…?"_

"Turn out your pockets."

The boy raises his eyebrows in bewilderment. "Why?"

"Ten points from Gryffindor for questioning a teacher." The boy looks outraged and Snape's heart fluttered in excitement. "Turn out your pockets. _Now_!" he commands smoothly.

A furtive handful of first years tiptoe past and skittered off when Snape's eye roved on them.

Exasperated, Potter gives in, and turns out his robe pockets. He pulls out a handful of Weasley sweets, a quill, and his wand, but nothing that suggests that he had stolen any food from the table that evening.

Snape circled him. He wanted to be sure the boy wasn't hiding anything behind his back. Potter's green eyes followed his every move, silent, scathing, almost murderous.

"What exactly are you looking for, Professor?"

"Food…"

His face was scrunched up in confusion. "I don't understand—"

"I've watched you pilfer food every year, Potter—"

"I've never stolen—"

"It doesn't matter! You took the food off the table and hid it, like a deep, shameful secret."

He paled, and Snape realised the boy looked like a deer struck by the headlights of a Muggle car.

Snape smirked, relishing the moment. _Wrong, but so good._

"Why?"

The boy doesn't answer. His mouth opened and closed for a minute and Snape grew impatient, hungry for an answer.

"That's none of your business!" Potter replied in defiance. Punching his pockets the right way in, before he deposited his belongings in them once again.

Lip curled, Snape narrowed his eyes as the boy turned around and stalked off. "I've seen more than you think I have... I haven't told Dumbledore..."

He stopped suddenly, shoulders hunched now. The boy understood. Snape watched as Potter's hands morph into white-knuckled fists. He faces him again, jaw clenched and eyes resolute with anger.

"You had no right—"

But Snape squashes him like an insect. "Just like when you saw my memories in the Pensieve?"

_Ahh revenge,_ Snape savagely thought, watching the boy writhe as his secrets were divulged.

"Cupboard under the stairs… barred window, tinned soup, unloved, locked away… almost starved…" Snape took a moment for the boy to digest the information.

He does not retaliate.

A_ny moment now,_ Snape wished. "And dare I say… _beaten_…"

"No I wasn't!"

"Yes… you were!" Snape silkily attacked. "You told yourself it was okay, that you'd be all right, so you hid it well… quite well from everyone in fact... If only Dumbledore knew the true extent of your childhood… But I know…"

The boy chuckles to himself, head bowed, nodding. But there was no amusement, just dark resentment.

"Just like you," Potter duelled back, green eyes boring into black.

"You've just scored yourself another detention! Your father would be thrill—"

"Would your father be proud of you?"

His smirk hit back like an ironclad punch to Snape's stomach.

_No… _

"Another week's worth of detentions, on top of the others, Potter," he spat. "Get out of my sight!"

"With pleasure…"

With a slight bow and a flourish of his arms, mocking Snape, he strode off.

**Please review. :)**


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